Can I change out my H3 55w bulbs for H3 100w bulbs?

I have a Westin Ultimate Bull Bar and have installed 4 Westin 55w lights on it. Believe me, drilling through these bull bars is almost impossible! Tough, tough, tough!

Anyways, the light is okay but I'd like to do better. Can I just simply switch out the 55w H3 bulbs for more powerful 75w H3s or 100w H3s? Is there a better 55w H3 bulb out there than the Westin stock bulbs?

Thanks a lot, guys.

 

If the stock wiring can handle the extra load and the housing doesn't melt, there's no reason you can't upgrade the bulbs. That being said, I don't think that's your best bet... If you're set on keeping those lights, you might want to consider HID's insteady of just upping the wattage. 4 lights at 100W/ea is a lot of draw for the light output you're going to get out of it.

If you want quality lighting, the answer isn't always just to throw more wattage at it. A quality set of lights will put plenty of light down a trail, a lot of it is the lens and reflectors. Check out companies like Light Force and PIAA, their lights aren't cheap but they throw light a looong ways. Secondly, is your location. That bull bar mounts lights way too low for driving or distance lights to be effective. Fog lights would do great that low, distance, not so much. Distance lights should be mounted higher up, around headlight height.

 

My best experience for long range was Cibie Oscars, pencil beam lens. Metal lamp, glass lens.


I used the 100w bulbs. I wired them with the right gauge wire through a relay, with the coil fed from the high beams.

100W not legal for on road use.

The lamps themselves shouldn't have an issue.

 

Four 100w bulbs is 33.3333333333333333333333333333333333333 amps of draw on a relay, my advice would be to wire them to two separate relays and back to a single switch, also it would be better if you don't want to replace all the wiring with heavier gauge wire.

 

Wrong! According to my calculations, its actually 33.333333333333336.